There’s been a lot of talk lately about how phones with mp3 functionality will inevitably take over the mp3 player market. Consolidation seems to be the word. The folks at Geeks.com sent us the US edition of the (unlocked) Nokia 3300 mp3 phone — one of the first of its kind — and we put it to test.The Good
The Nokia 3300 is a dual band 850 MHz/1900 MHz phone, utilizing the Series 40 user interface (version 1.0), which is Nokia’s home-brewed solution and OS (non-Symbian). The phone sports a 128×128 4096 color dual-scan screen and the US version comes in two colors: orange and blue. It comes with a 64 MB MMC card pre-installed but it supports MMC cards up to 1 GB. The phone mounts as a USB storage device on any operating system and so you could use the phone as an ordinary storage device! Of course, the main feature of the phone that makes it special is its mp3/aac playback capability, its FM playback and recording capability and its full-fledged keyboard.
The phone has a “music” button that will automatically start playing the first AAC or mp3 song in a playlist (.pls and .m3u are supported). Pressing the music button again will load a menu with options for music playback, FM radio or switching off the current music. The phone comes from the factory with seven 30-second songs as a demo. In our test the internal player was able to read mp3 tags, but when a song did not have tags in it, the song would show up as blank in the screen, not even the filename would appear instead.
There are no progress bars when playing a song, but you can easily move from one song to another using the four-way button on the phone which allows for “stop”, “play”, “next song”, and “previous song”, while long presses of the same button can move the playback to a different segment of the same song. On the top right of the phone there is a volume button that allows changing the volume of both the loudspeaker (which is of pretty good quality), the earphones and the internal speaker. The quality of the headset is not bad, but it’s not that great either: the stereo headset only has one earphone (for safety reasons), which brings the experience down a bit.
The FM radio works very well, and was able to receive all the local channels, preset our favorite channels and even record directly to the MMC card. Using the recording line-in port we were even able to record from a CD audio source into AAC format.
Regarding the phone as a… phone, this is a normal 128×128 Nokia Series 40 phone. Nothing more, nothing less. Many features, many choices in the menus, including a WAP/XHTML browser (limited only by the huge fonts used…), IM instant messaging, MMS and SMS support, a calculator, an organizer, an image viewer, a voice recorder, email, voice commands, a countdown timer, a stopwatch. On the hardware side, the phone has vibration, a DKU-2 data cable, a boom headset, a 2.5 hours talk time, 9 days on standby, about 9 hours of mp3 playback and about 11 hours of FM radio. We used the phone with AT&T/Cingular and we had very good reception (the 3300 has much better reception than my older SonyEricsson T310).
My personal favorite feature of the phone is its keyboard. It makes SMS or emailing a real breeze. I was able to type on it much faster than I do with the Zaurus 5500’s own thumb-board. The keys feel good, and they give you a good feedback if something was pressed or not.
The phone also supports Java games and applications (MIDP-1.0). It comes preloaded with 4 games, but I installed a few more too. The screen is dual scan and so fast action paced games (e.g. shoot’em ups) will look “dizzy” but slow paced games (e.g. puzzles) look great. The great thing about this phone is that you grab it with both hands and so the game-assigned keys on the keyboard (the game keys have different color than the rest of the keys) are easy to reach and usability feels a lot like a game pad.
The Bad
This phone has a few problems. The biggest problem for me was the lack of “local” communications: no IrDA, no Bluetooth. It gets worse: the phone is not supported by Nokia’s own phone application (the Oxygen manager requires you buy an f-bus convertor cable to support the phone, apparently). There is only an “audio manager” app available, which is kind of useless as the phone is already mounted as a USB storage device anyway and so uploading music files is as simple as drag-and-drop.
But when it comes on uploading, let’s say, games or wallpapers or images, there is no good way of doing so. To send images/wallpapers to your phone you have to send an MMS to yourself or download them off the web (there is no way you can do it via your PC), while installing games you have to place them on the /Applications folder of the MMC card, and then install them from there (placing them on a Games folder doesn’t work).
Unfortunately, only about 30 applications and 30 games are allowed to be installed at the same time (which makes it only 30 overall *if* you didn’t download the games off the web and instead you tried manual installation, as the games are installed under /Applications). Games and apps use ~6 MB of “shared” memory and they can’t use the whole MMC card for storage, which instead is given to music and recordings.
There’s also a small annoyance with the MMC storage: if you use a 512 MB or 1 GB MMC card (which they are compatible btw) and you drop all your mp3s in there, the phone will only see about 128 of the files and folders. This is a FAT file system limitation (which exists for more than two decades) and the only way to go around it is to create folders with songs in them and place the playlists on the music folder of the MMC card (make sure your playlists have relative paths in them and not absolute).
The last problem is more… political than the rest. Nokia decided to use their own, proprietary, headphone jack which means that you will have to either purchase a convertor to use your (better) headphones, or buy a better Nokia headphone model. I don’t foresee many people staying with the default one-ear earphone.
Conclusion
As a phone, the Nokia 3300 is a good choice, with biggest problems the lack of local communications and desktop application to manage the phone’s data. But ultimately, it does the job well.
As a music device, the 3300 fares pretty well against the current *flash* mp3 players. It features a large display (for a flash mp3 player), an FM radio and recording capabilities, and it has a good sound quality. Coupling it with the phone/gaming functionality, and for just $80 (that you could buy that phone these days) makes it a great buy. Of course, hard-disk based mp3 players are still a better choice and they will remain so for a long time but if you are in the market of a flash mp3 player and you wouldn’t mind a [new] cellphone with excellent IM/messaging capabilities, get the Nokia 3300 for sure.
Overall: 7.5/10
Update Sep 5th 2005: The phone does NOT work in Europe, at least not in Germany or Greece that I tried it. It is dual band and it works on USAs’ GSM bands only.
Shame about the choice of music…
On EVERY mp3-player review I have seen in my life where there is a shot of the player in question playing a song, there is ALWAYS a comment commenting on the choice of music. Therefore, I will ignore this particular comment because it’s a lot like “first post”.
By responding to it you didn’t ignore it. Nice try though.
It’s really gonna to suck when you can’t call anyone for directions when you’re lost b/c you wasted your cell batteries playing the latest Tiesto CD.
I must say that the phone (and the T310, ugh) is one of the worst looking things I’ve seen, and it’s hardly new. I knew a guy with a Nokia 5510 which had a very similar MP3/AAC playback function back in 2002, but it was never sold in the US.
I have a SonyEricsson K700i, it plays MP3s and has a FM tuner and even has a progress bar. Sure, I paid more for it, and it only has 40MB of storage, but it gets me to work. It also has bluetooth, IrDA, a camera and although you are still stuck with a supplied headset, it’s a stereo headset with a mic for handsfree operation.
I’d still prefer an iPod though, I think it has a better music management interface. Phone companies still have a long way to go.
Actually, from up close, it does not look ugly, it looks really good in my eyes. It’s one of the best looking devices in my house and I can assure you, I have a few to compare.
I was referring more to the interface that the styling, I’ve used a similar phone before (the aforementioned 5510 which is on much the same lines) and it was really nice. Looks a bit odd when you talk on it though.
Then again, I’ve never been a fan of Nokia’s interfaces, so far I’ve found SonyEricsson to be the nicest, but that may change when I get my next phone.
I have to wonder why someone reviews a device that is almost 3 years old and propably not even available on stores anymore… Same as you’d review Amiga 500 today..
The proprietary headphone jack is pointless and un-necessary. I think it will turn an awful lot of people off if they’re buying the phone to use as an MP3 player.
People might be asking ‘why not just buy a different phone that DOES let me use my generic, since-the-dawn-of-time 3.5mm jack connector?’
I have to agree with this, the proprietary Nokia headphone jack was indeed unesessary. But Nokia needed to make some [more] money, so… 😉
This basically had happended with my nokia 6230. However, it is only a problem if you use the built-in speaker (which sounds crappy for music anyway) instead of the headphones.
Probably because I set the volume nearly to the max then.
nice as an mp3 player if you don’t mind charging your phone every day!
The problem with moderm do-everything phones is battery life. I was in a position where I had no computer for over a week, and used the phone a lot to play games, read a few emails, take some pictures and write the odd note down. The battery life was a disgrace!
The custom connector for earphones is another horrible thing too! Why do phone companies do that? It’s stupid!!
Actually, phones have much better battery life than PDAs and laptops, so this comment is a bit unfair. Phone battery life itself might not be great, but compared to other gadgets, it’s better.
I have the new SE K750i, and it’s an even better phone than the K700i. It has a memorystick duo slot (came with a 64MB stick installed) and 2Megapixel camera (very good quality, does 1632×1224 as well as the regular 640×480 and 320×240 modes. Java can access bluetooth, so a lot of aps that don’t work on the K700i work on the K750i (or at least will work with slight revision.) It also has some kind of Java 3D stuff included, though I’ve never felt the need to try it out.
Phone is completely themable – mine has a Mac theme at the moment.
The browser is pretty good (can do HTML well enough to view OSNews articles and comments – even looked at other pages so I know it’s not just that OSNews is serving phone specific pages.)
All important – it’s candy bar shaped, so you can actually pocket it.
I’ve found that using bluetooth to get the files on knocks out far more battery life than playing music. Plus I put it on the charger when I get home every day, so it’s never been an issue.
As for the custom connector, I completely agree, but I think I could create an adaptor from a spare handsfree kit. Might do it one day.
Yes, it’s been done. There is a how-to on the web with pictures on how to make a normal headphone jack to fit on a nokia jack. It’s a bit hands-on thingie, but apparently it can be done if you are good with that stuff.
Here is a method that can be used for Nokia’s case too:
http://www.tekguru.co.uk/phpBB2/kb.php?mode=article&k=11
Make sure to cut the cables above the speaker (the white part in the middle with the button on it) and not below it.
I have 5 votes as I type this post but only the first comment can be voted “+” or “-“.
Is this a bug in the OSNews site?
What’s so ‘one of the first in its kind’ in 3300?
I mean, we’ve had FM receivers in cell phones for like 8 years and MP3 players for at least 3 years.
Yes.. my thourghts exactly – what is news worthy here ?
Today, like every morning, I listened to MP3s, stored on a 1Gb Flash plugged into my Treo.
It too has a proprietry headphone jack which I agree is annoying and 1 Gb isn’t as great as a hold all your music 40Gb player.. but it does at least keep me going for a week at a time.
This isn’t the first cellphone with an mp3 function, as I have already owned (and still using) a Nokia 5510 phone since the early 2003. My only gripe with these kinds of phones is their proprietary headset connectors, it really turns me off.
I’m going to buy an iPod shuffle sometime soon.
Who said that it’s “the first”? I didn’t, so don’t put words in my mouth I never said. Instead, I wrote that it is ONE of the first, and it really is one of the first. This phone was first released in 2003 and it was one of the first phones to be fully MARKETED as a MUSIC PHONE though and through.
Ok. Firstable, I see a lot of people giving opinions on the Nokia 3300. I have owned 5 of them. Yes I keep loosing it, thanks good for insurance. This is a old phone 2-3 years already. I they dont make it anymore, at least for the US market. Cingular and T-Mobile dont carry them anymore. The phone is good overall, good sound, 64MB memory basic, expandable. Very nice if you like to send text messages. One major problem is the battery life if you use music (mp3 files) as your rigntone.
I had one of these phones 3 years ago.
Yawn,
So what if it was released 2 years ago (not 3). It is still fully operational and pretty current too in terms of functionality. And it’s at a good price too.
I really wish people would say Music or Audio Player. This reinforces that mp3 is the ony viable format and it is not. Which brings me to what I really want to say:
OGG support please!
Its called an mp3 player bacause thats all it plays.
If it were called an “audio player” it would be too vague. ogg nazi go home.
I believe it plays AAC. It is bundled with RealPlayer and is designed to work with the Real store. check the Nokia site for details.
So now it is not just an mp3 player.
There is no Real player in that phone. There is AAC support though.
…if for the keyboard alone. I think this is the cheapest (and still modern) phone I have seen with a built-in keyboard. I use SMS a lot so this phone could be useful.
Sony Ericsson is coming with 2 new models K750 and W800, they are almost identical, they can have memory sticks up to 2 GB of data, 2MPix camera with autofocus, and great headphones/handsfree.
W800 will be branded as a WalkMan and have cooler coloring, it will also support music playing while the phone is off (30 hours of music playing then).
I dont think any cell phone could beat W800 when talking about media player in cell phones.
The K750 costs around 400 €, but the W800 is still not out yet.
I read that Nokia has also a new phone with a built in (4 GB) hard drive, but I do not think that the battery life of a cell phone with a micro hard drive nor its weight is comparable to a memory stick duo pro.
Look, 4 GB, now we’re talking! My 5 GB mp3 Creative Zen has too little space if you ask me. I really couldn’t live with 512 MB…only 5.5 hours of music! That means changing music every 2-3 days.
Battery life needn’t suffer btw. The 20 GB mp3 player from Creative has a whopping 20 (18) hour battery life!
…why is it that almost no company in existance has OGG Vorbis support in their media players? Is that too much to ask? Is it too hard to implement? Or is M$ behind all this, trying to squash OGG Vorbis (wouldn’t surprise me one bit)… 🙁
I’m getting tired of having to encode everything in either AAC or mp3 just to listen to my music. Something has to be done to make manufacturers aware that there’s more than one or two choices out there.
>…why is it that almost no company in existance has >OGG Vorbis support in their media players? Is that >too much to ask? Is it too hard to implement? Or is >M$ behind all this, trying to squash OGG Vorbis(wouldn’t surprise me one bit)… 🙁
Well, this one is easy
Too little demand…
> I’m getting tired of having to encode everything in > either AAC or mp3 just to listen to my music. >Something has to be done to make manufacturers aware >that there’s more than one or two choices out there.
Well, they know, but these 2 are the most popular ones. Market is driven by needs, not availability of solutions per se….
Well, this one is easy
Too little demand…
Actually I think this is a case of chicken-egg.
I wanted a player that could handle ogg, but the players I liked quality/price AND capacity wise didn’t. So I didn’t buy one that could handle ogg, and that’s why I keep coding my cds into mp3 instead of ogg. And people doing market-surveys probably think: well, those ogg players didn’t sell, there probably isn’t demand. There is demand, but people have to suppress that demand to get decent players.
I hate to appear like I’m pimping iRiver, but they offer devices which range from 64 MB to 40 GB, which are generally available at a price just below the market average for comparable devices. What combination of features and price was it that you were looking for which iRiver couldn’t satisfy?
As someone else mentioned, basic market forces, not some nefarious conspiracy, is at fault here. That said, market niches rarely remain underserved for long, as they represent a market opportunity. The key is to educate yourself and spend your money wisely.
Personally, I can’t fathom why in the world anyone would willingly choose to buy an ipod. They are overpriced and underfeatured when compared to rest of the market, but, alas, most people don’t buy mere “tools”, or even “products,” rather they buy into a market tested “life-style” by associating themselves with a recognized icon of shared identity. I, on the other hand, absolutely detest the marriage of commercial brand with shared identity and, not being some rat in a maze, refuse to enthusiastically hand over my cash when the appropriate bell is rung. Actually, this explains why I will never buy a Mac is spite of the fact that I believe they are pretty nice from a purely technical perspective. I just can’t bring myself to be associated in any way with the “computers for the rest of us” crowd, who appear to me as a bunch fawning sycophants, eagerly greasing their bums while chanting “Give it to me again Stevie boy!”.
Oh, yes, media players… sorry got carried away with my rant. Buy an iRiver: cheap, wide support for codecs (including Ogg), boatloads of features, and they don’t force any assinine DRM schemes down your throat.
There is another reason very few companies support OGG. Decoding OGG files is more CPU intensive than decoding mp3s, so special hardware considerations must be made. As the format gets more popular, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more hardware manufacturers supporting it.
So the ultimate result is to have one device that does everything? Just like… um… computers? Because we know how reliable computers are.
I’m not too eager for this kind of consolidation. Dedicated devices do their dedicated function much better than multi-purpose devices. What’s that quote? “Complexity is the primary opponent of reliability.” ??
My cell phone already has a GUI that is slower than it should be. I remember the days when phones were functional appliances…
I guess I’m just a luddite.
It looks vulgar compared to any model of iPod ! I still prefer to have my shuffle _and_ my old Sony Ericsson T610 !
Keep it simple !
Ummm…. people, what the heck are you talking about? While you listen to mp3 music through your headphones, battery lasts MUCH longer than during phone talk time.
The reason is simple: during phone talk, a lot of energy is used for transmission. Expecially if you are in a region with low reception, the phone automatically increases transmitting power to compensate. As a consequence, battery is discharged more quickly.
I’m writing this with the (original) N-Gage. Same form factor, MMC, USB, MP3, radio etc., plus – Symbian OS, 3D games, Bluetooth, handsfree thing with two earphones and phonejack convertors. And it’s cheap – if you can find it.
That’s “just” updated version of Nokia 5510 (and I’m extremelly happy from the fact)
I thought it was something new (hadn’t seen it…), then I’ve checked on PL/EU Nokia site and…3300 was here for a long time, though without qwerty (here it has quite typical key layout)
Oh well, and here I was hoping for worthy succesor of 5510 that’s available where I live… :/